Its called Tinitus...... What happens is over a long period of time where the noise is present, your ears slowly become desensitized to the noise created by the fans. This is initially uncomfortable, and leads to ringing in your ears after a period of time. Eventually you will become so desensitized to the noise in the frequency, and will be partially deaf to sounds in the frequency. When the noise is made up of fans however, the noise is a fairly wide frequency, so you are looking at being unable to watch television and stuff as you will be deaf to a wide frequency in the middle of the hearing band. I dont think its permanent, but you do need to do something about it fairly early on if you begin to feel the symptoms. I start to get ringing in my ears after a long time in front of the PC (I blame that Sunon 120mm + the other 9 or so fans) in which case I turn it off and go do something else. I am shortly to get a baybus so I can reduce the noise when its unnecessary, and also I listen to music which helps break up the noise from a low frequency drone......... If I am wrong about anything above, then someone correct me
I don't know if you're wrong, but after working for 9 years on construction sites without ear protection, I am unable to have a conversation in a place with any kind of crowd. I cannot hear a person standing right next to me if there is too much background noise. This really sucks because besides this I have excellent hearing.
this is actually true as i kno about not being able to hear people in crouds, i make my money setting up & tuning peoples hifi as i have fantastic hearing but i cannot hear people when there is a croud (i listen to myne really loud, it can sometimes be painful not on the ears but the spl can hurt a lot if exposed to extremem pressure) tinnus is actually where you lose your hearing is lost but it is replaced by a continuous (ie never ending) ring in the ears, trust me your ears are your friends (i was born deaf so i kno what it was like not being able to hear but i got my hearing over many years of graduly increased hearing & i tell you in never going back to the scilence agian) to be honest if your worried about the sound from your pc use bigger fans that run at slower rotations, will still pass the same amount of air & be quieter into the bargin
I had tinnitus problems for a couple of days one time due to the 60mm delta I had...I had a ringing in my ear on the side where my machine was, and it stopped me from sleeping. That was the final straw, and the loudest individual fan in my machine now is the mechatronics at 39dB. I intend to replace my YStechs with quieter Panaflos at some point also (I've done one already...three to do).
ok now i feel really unconfident about my PC. maybe i'll save up for water cooling instead of a DVD-RW
What was that I dunno if what you are saying is true but I have no ringing or hearing problems and as you can see by my sig I have a fair few fans inculding a 80mm Delta at 12v, also I have been listening to metal music for the last 12 years at a very high volume
cool, didn't really knew that existed... the ringing in your ear, what does it "looks" like? I mean, when it's completly silent, I can hear lots of unnatural things, but thats probably my imagination... I mean, will I know when I hear it?
HAve you ever been to a really loud concert and had the ringing in your ears afterward? It's like this only at a lower volume. Which any time you have this loud ringing (e.g. from concerts) it is damage to your eardrums. Over time this will cause problems and the older you are, teh less likely it is that your ears will fully heal after this ahppens. I know wear earplugs when I go to concerts.
i do listen to really loud music (to the lewvels of seeing water ripple in my cups of coffee) & have a big pair of headphones that play so loud my skin vibrates & yes i have had the rining in my ears before, i think it sounds a bit like having a fan continually going. oh watercooling can be done cheap but my pump jsut died so i am back to air cooling & im sure everyone has had ringine ears (if anyone goes to cruses & checks out some of the installs [ie back seats ripped out & 18 subs in a fiesta] will know jsut how much you can hurt your eardrums, i would not hugly worry about your machine tho, use it as an excuse to slack off, every 15 mins or so go get a chokkie bar or a bag of crisps (alwyas look on the upside)
4x50db fans would only be 56 db. 10^(50/10) = 100,000 4 * 100,000 = 400,000 10 * log(400,000) = 56 right?
i dont know the exsact amount, but its not 200 DBA, like you would think. i dont think anyway =] why do you need 4 X 50db fans anyway ??? are you cooling a super computer ??? .icecube
